It has become commonplace to offer refrigerated products directly to the public in a variety of stores. For example, roadside convenience stores and gas stations have long offered refrigerated drinks in ice buckets and other readily accessible devices whereby the individual selected and obtained the drink or other refrigerated item without assistance. A preferred method of self service delivery of such products has become to provide one or more publicly accessible refrigerators or freezers that both present the drink (or other refrigerated product) and serve to dispense it as well. Thus, an individual may enter a convenience store and find an entire wall of refrigerated cabinets. Each cabinet is provided with one or more display devices that facilitate storage and retrieval of a multitude of products, ranging from soft drinks to dairy products such as ice cream and other consumer food products. The individual thus opens the door to the refrigerator or freezer and “reaches-in” to retrieve the desired item. This arrangement has been very successful. Accordingly, more and different establishments are providing such refrigerators and freezers. For example, one may encounter reach-in refrigerators and freezers in airport concession stores, sandwich shops, restaurants, schools, hospitals, sports arenas, office buildings, and almost any other type of commercial establishment where a demand exists for ready access to refrigerated products.
It is to be appreciated that reach-in refrigerators and freezers are typically provided in high-use situations. As a result, the refrigerator and freezer doors are repeatedly opened and closed by many different people. For example, a convenience store reach-in refrigerator door may be opened and closed by persons of all ages, ranging from young children to the elderly. Many such individuals are careless with or inadvertently misuse the refrigerator door. For example, a young child may hang on the door while it closes. A person may lean against an open refrigerator door for physical support. A person may exert a downward force on the refrigerator door handle for any number of reasons. Of course, classic wear and tear on the door as a result of frequent use may cause the door to become mis-aligned on its hinges. As a result, the door itself “sags”or becomes mis-aligned with the jamb. This sagging causes a gap to develop between the door and cabinet that reduces the performance of the refrigeration and enables the entrance of vermin.
Thus, it is known that doors of commercial reach-in refrigerators sag and lose proper alignment with their respective opening of a refrigerator or freezer cabinet. It is further known that even new doors, due to manufacturing tolerances of either the door, the cabinet, or both, may not properly align with the opening. As a result, various prior art methods have been devised to correct for such sag and misalignment, including shimming, remounting the hinge and distorting the cabinet. However, each of these methods offered only an external method of addressing the mis-alignment problem.
An anti-sag hinge has been developed to compensate for sagging, as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,374,458 and 6,152,554. In these designs, an adjustment plate is mounted to the interior surface of a mounting flange. The adjustment plate resides within a recess or well extending into the mounting flange. This recess forces the mounting flange to be larger than necessary in order to compensate for both the well and the thickness necessary to retain the weight of the door. The existence of the recess also necessitates the existence of a separate cover or plug to cover the recess, to prevent food or other matter from being accidentally retained within the recess.
These types of hinges also must meet the requirements of cleanability and maintenance set by the National Sanitation Foundation (NSF). These requirements dictate that hinges used on commercial food handling equipment must have no uncleanable openings or recessed areas. Covered areas may present hinges with uncleanable areas.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for an apparatus and method for compensating for the sag or misalignment of reach-in refrigerator and freezer doors that is internal to the door hinge. It is to the provision of such therefore that the present invention is primarily directed.